Cursive
| Cursive | |
|---|---|
| Type | Enter the plugin type e.g. activity, block, filter |
| Set | N/A |
| Downloads | Enter the plugins directory link |
| Issues | Enter the bug tracker URL |
| Discussion | Enter the link to the forum or discussion thread |
| Maintainer(s) | [Maintainer name](https://docs.moodle.org/User/Maintainer_name) |
Cursive for Moodle
At Cursive, we believe in transparency, the importance of human ingenuity, and, most importantly, the value of writing. Our approach to authorship and analytics persistently identifies writers and provides novel insights into an individual's writing.
This plugin enhances Moodle in several ways via the text editor.
Without the integration,
- it adds key event data logging locally to create a new data layer related to typed text within the system (currently for online text, discussions, and essay type questions in quizzes),
- leveraging this new data, a "playback" of the writing is available to see how student work was generated (e.g. was it typed or copy pasted?),
- the plugin also adds a "cite-source" feature which adds a modal if/when a student uses ctrl+v to paste text into a supported text editor area, the modal solicits a comment or information from the student. Both the comment and the pasted text are made available to the teacher role like a foot note.
By connecting to the Cursive Machine Learning server, the integration
- analyzes created data via a secure connection to the Cursive Machine Learning server, reporting
- student authorship verification (is the user the same user across writing sessions)
- analytics of the writing session (duration, summary statistics, editing metrics)
- coming soon: a diff of the submitted vs written text to highlight copy-paste or browser injected text
- coming soon: graphs and visualizations
A reporting feature can be used with the ML server integration to analyze data by user, assignment, or course over time.
Installation
The integration process for Cursive is three easy steps (~15 minutes).
STEP 1: Installation to Moodle
- Download Cursive’s TinyMCE extension: https://github.com/cursiveinc/moodle-tinymce_cursive
Use the “<> Code” drop-down to select “Download ZIP”
- Navigate to your Moodle’s Site Administration-> Plugins-> Install Plugins and upload the ZIP to begin installation.
- Continue through the installation process as needed. This will create all tables necessary to utilize the plugin.
STEP 2: Token Configuration
Once installation is successful, you will automatically be directed to the Cursive settings page. If you closed this page prematurely, you can navigate back to it through your Admin Search or by accessing the TinyMCE settings https://yourmoodle.edu/admin/category.php?category=editortiny
- Enter your Cursive secret key and the appropriate API Address (both will be securely provided to your team by Cursive staff).
- Optional: click the “Test Token” button to ensure your site is connected to the Cursive ML server.
- Enter your Moodle host (this is your Moodle site URL)
- A custom threshold may be added to change from the default setting (this impacts only when green checks are displayed; e.g. setting this to zero would result in Green checks for every session).
- Choose whether or not to use the Cursive “copy+paste” intervention tool (by default, this is enabled). This feature adds the ‘cite-source’ copy+paste modal intervention based on student use of ctrl/option+V and solicits a source or comment which is appended to the submission.
- If everything is entered correctly, click “Save changes”.
STEP 3: Task Configuration
As a final step, please update your scheduled task settings to ensure your site communicates regularly with the Cursive ML server at your desired frequency.
- Configure your cron job by navigating to Site Administration -> Server->Scheduled tasks. This manages the service that uploads JSON files to Cursive’s ML server, where authorship and writing analytics data are computed.
Recommendation: post data at a convenient time, at least once daily, and communicate this with your faculty, staff, and students to ensure they understand when analytics and authorship data will be posted.
Below is a configuration for our demo site that leverages this information in near real-time (the sessions are uploaded every 5 minutes). Our recommendation is to suit the needs of the classroom and class schedule.
- Once you have added your settings, click “Save changes.”
STEP 4: TinyMCE as Default
Cursive runs on TinyMCE’s text editor, available as the default in Moodle 4.2 and beyond. If your site is running an older version of Moodle, Cursive may still work, but you must enable TinyMCE and ensure it’s being used where you would like Cursive to be used.
- To change your site’s text editor settings, please go to Site Administration-> Plugins -> Text Editors-> Manage editors
Placing TinyMCE at the top of the list (using the arrows) will make it the default for all text editors.
Please note that individual users on your site may have the ability (depending on role permissions) to change their text editor preferences through their Profile page.
